


Rive

by dundus



Series: For The Life-Verse [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Crow: Stairway To Heaven
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Mary Sue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dundus/pseuds/dundus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girls are having their hearts torn out, and Spike is determined to protect Dawn at all costs. A mysterious stranger comes into town, and the gang needs to work out how he's involved. Post-Gift AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rive

My head was jammed back, not uncomfortably, and he had pinned my left hand high against the roughness of the brick wall.  I had little room to move, and even less will.

When there's no need to breathe, a kiss can last forever. But I arched my back, flattening my breasts even further against his tight chest, and broke this one off. I dipped my head into the pale curve of his neck and moved up, alternating nibbles with murmurs.  No sweet nothings these.  I was whispering verbal snapshots of our surroundings.

I laughed.  Partly because of the wicked ticklish things Spike's tongue was doing to my collarbone, and partly to blend in with the giggly giddy fucked-up partygoers that milled around the Sunnydale warehouse.

I'm not sure how conspicuous we were; we looked twice as old as the people around us.  But lust is lust, and united us all.

Something caught my eye, a flicker of dark in my peripheral vision.  I pulled Spike towards me, unconsciously slipping my leg between his to draw him even closer so I could peer around him.

"What is it, kit?" he mumbled into my ear. "What do you see?"

"I don't know." I ran my tongue up his neck to his earlobe and nipped it lightly. "I thought it might have been that girl coming back, but I don't think so.  Something went by, but I can't see or smell it for sure."

A bird croaked above us.  I looked up and saw it shake its wings and settle into a rooftop perch.

"Think it was Polly up there?" How he could talk without stopping the rain of kisses was beyond me, but I was glad of it.

"Maybe." There was a sudden movement at the far end of the alley.  I flipped our positions, pinning Spike instead to the wall.  I ran my fingers behind his neck, sliding them under the collar of his coat, and tapped his face in the direction of the noise with my forehead. "No.  See?"

Silhouetted by the streetlight, a man was moving away from us.  Shoulder-length hair flared in his wake, and the tails of his coat swirled in echo as he took the corner in a determined stride.

For a moment he seemed to look right at us, twisted in each other, nestling in the dark.  Then he moved on.

A girl's terrified scream rang out from where he had disappeared.  We sprang apart and ran towards the cries.  Maybe he was one of them - whoever had been kidnapping young girls and leaving pieces of them all over Sunnydale.

She huddled at the end of the alley, alternating screams with piteous whimpers.  As we skidded around the corner towards her, she pointed, trembling, up the fire escape.  Our shadow was halfway up, and gaining distance with unearthly speed.

Spike leapt up immediately after him, but I paused to look at the girl.  She was no girl, older on further inspection, perhaps in her twenties.  And clearly traumatized by whatever we'd interrupted.

I smiled in her direction and slid into vamp face before going on up to the rooftop.  Spike had almost caught up with the attacker.  I was in time to see the vampire launch himself at his target, and the stranger whirl with reflexes that matched his foot speed.  Still, he had no chance to move clear before Spike crashed into him, knocking him to the ground.  The two men rolled, twisting and grappling for the upper hand, and neither gaining it.

Just as I reached them, Spike looked to be on the losing end.  Until my steel-tipped toe caught the stranger in the throat, brutally crushing his larynx and sending him flying up and off to land with a satisfying thud on the tarred roof.

I stared down at him as Spike stood up by my side.  He rested a hand on my shoulder.

"Freak," I said, looking down at the stranger's painted face, artificially pale with darkened eyes and lips. "Think he was one of them?"

"Not what I was expecting," mused Spike.  "And now there's no …"

With a sudden shudder, what should have been the stranger's corpse lurched towards a sitting position.  In that same quick moment, my knife was in my hand and slashing deeply into his throat.  The body slumped back to the ground.

"No what?" I asked turning to face Spike, and reflexively bringing the knife to my lips.

"No chance to ask him about it, you knife-happy git," he said reproachfully as we stepped away.

"Oh." Suddenly I realised something was strange and looked down at my knife.  It was bone dry.  No blood, no fluids, nothing.  I looked back down at the corpse.

Or where it should have been.

Spike followed my gaze.

"Well, we can just ask him next time we see him, huh?" I made my voice perky – McDonald's would-you-like-fries-with-that? helpful.  But he wasn't letting me goad him too far.

Instead of responding, he sighed with exaggerated heaviness and made a show of pulling out a pack of Craven A's and lighting one.  His rigmarole with the lighter was almost as intricate as mine with my butterfly knife. 

Which gave me an idea – I ignored him right back by studiously and needlessly cleaning and re-sheathing my knife.

In his silence I watched him think.  His smoking was lazy but deliberate, a sensual caress of the clouds of smoke.  The intensity of his eyes belied his relaxed ritual as he mulled over the new information.

With another sigh, he exhaled the last of the smoke and flicked the end of his cigarette behind him into the alley below us. I peered over after it.  The young woman had gone.

I joined him where he sat on the raised skylight.

"That guy was fast," I said.

"Uhuh." Spike frowned, distracted.

"Strong.  Good fighter."

"Umm." He looked at me.

"No scent.  Hard to kill."

"You're attracted to him, aren't you?"

I hate being simple.

"No." I moved closer to him, stroking his jaw, not even trying to be convincing. "Why would you think that?"

"No need to overdo it, luv." He rolled his eyes and pulled me even nearer. "I know you're not going anywhere."

"Damned skippy." He hated that phrase, so I kissed him.

He frowned again.

"I'm going to have to take this back to the Scooby Gang."

"Take what, exactly?" Talk of the Scoobs made me nervous.  This group of humans made me nervous, and we hadn't even met.  "We don't actually _know_ anything, do we?"

"Bloke doesn't match what we'd been thinking," he mused. "Still very dodgy."

"I'll be back at the crypt, then." I kissed his forehead and stepped back.

"Nah, kit." My stomach tightened. "You've got to meet them sooner or later."

"Maybe for something less serious?" I knew I was fishing here, so I broke eye contact.

"It's not like I just look them up whenever I feel like a cuppa, kitten." He turned my head to face his, but I resolutely kept my focus on the curve of his lower lip. "I want to throw everything we have at this.  It'll help Dawn relax."

My obstinacy was no match for Spike's drive to protect the girl.  She was okay, for someone I wasn't allowed to eat.  She wasn't afraid of me, didn't treat me strangely, and most importantly to me, Spike would give up his unlife for her in a second.  And I wasn't going to risk that coming to pass.

It was only a hint of a pout, but I let Spike kiss it off anyway.  We were off to see the wizards.

* * *

"Your chip is removed, you start cohabiting with vampires, and we're not supposed to be concerned?" His voice dripped with distaste.

"Actually, me and her have been hanging out since well before I was robbed," said Spike, tapping his head.

"What?" The middle-aged Englishman turned to look at me in shock.

"Oh, untwist your knickers, Watcher." Spike was as aware of the tension in the room as I was.  A blind deaf-mute couldn't have missed it. "She's never fed off a human."

"How can you be sure?" This came from the tall dark-haired man standing at the Watcher's shoulder.  His arms were crossed, his brows furrowed, and he seethed with resentment.

"Well, since I turned her …"

"Since you did what?" The question from the redheaded witch came out with a squeal. "How could you?"

The eyes were back on Spike.

"I was attacked by a bunch of vampires," I started hesitantly, eager to draw their attention off him. "I only managed to kill a couple of them." Eyebrows were raised and glances exchanged. "But there were too many.  He showed up, but not in time.  I guess he felt sorry for me or something."

Their glares turned back to him.

"Vamping her was supposed to be some sort of solution?" asked the Watcher. "All this time we thought you were on our side.  On Buffy's side." He leant forward, staring intently, planting his hands among the open books on the table in front of him.

Spike threw his hands into the air, frustrated and exasperated.

"It's not like I could bloody well just watch another woman die, could I?"

"Better to add another killer to Sunnydale's ranks?" asked the Englishman.

"I wasn't thinking!" Spike's exclamation wasn't met with surprise. "Besides, I told you – she's never fed on a human."

"It's true," I said.  "He threatened to kill me if I did." I paused and looked at Dawn, who was the only one of the group I knew. She was also the only one looking at us without anger.  She trusted Spike. "He's very convincing."

"So how have you been feeding?" The Watcher was very intense, and had I been human still I might have been intimidated.  As it was, I appreciated the effort.

"From Spike's stash …"

"And we've been doing a bit of dimension-hopping from time to time," he added. "Strictly soulless – not an innocent in the bunch."

This was received with a mixture of misgiving and relief.

"Besides, killing demons is much more fun." Maybe that was sharing too much, but I couldn't stop myself. "A good fight, you know, with some challenge, some risk?"

The Watcher shook his head, unsurprised.

Most of them seemed a bit more relaxed now.  But the young man wasn't giving an inch.

"Killing demons?" he asked. "Which demons?"

"We patrol together," said Spike.

"When we've asked you to investigate?  Or to kill?"

So that's where his to-kill list came from.  I didn't care; it was a fun list.

"Absolutely." Spike stood up a little straighter, pushing out his chest. "She's good backup."

Backup?  Backup?  I decided it was an argument for another time.

Their suspicion wasn't entirely gone, but I got the impression that it had been a long time since this group had let down their guard.  They moved their attention back to the more sinister problem at hand.

Their roles in the demon hunting process were obviously familiar, but they were navigating around a raw and empty space.  They were all focussed, they all cared, but every time one of them had to step into the gap, to take charge, it was with a reluctant air of apology.

Research, debate, conjecture.  Not much of it concerned me.  Instead I watched the girl.  She was haunted by the same loss as the others, deeper yet, but her sadness lent her a quiet strength and resolve that made her seem ageless.

She shared some of this strength with the group as she moved among them, adding smiles, bringing soda, taking information from one researcher to another, and leaving them all a little calmer.

When she was done, when she had touched them all, she came and sat by my side.  I could feel her watching me in silence.  I saw her a little less as a forbidden snack, and a little more like a person, someone strong enough to earn Spike's affection.

The few assumptions they'd made had been muddied by this discovery of the stranger's existence.  A gradually escalating number of girls had been disappearing.  And human hearts were being found. With Spike and me around, it had been easy to determine that these hearts belonged to the missing young women.

Having lost a classmate, Dawn was understandably shaken.  But these disappearances had started around the time her sister died, and the locations the girls had been taken from seemed to form a stuttering spiral centring on her.

They were all in a tizzy, one way or another. Spike (and I, unbeknownst to the rest) had done tracking detail.  The witch was apparently very powerful, and was the big guns for defence.  Everyone else was researching – madly tossing up and discarding theories.  And consuming a great deal of caffeine, I observed.

There was no room in their speculation to date for a lone, preternaturally strong and agile male stranger.  The girls had been taken by other women, as best they could gather from reconnaissance and police reports.

Spike joined Dawn and me.

"I don't think there's anything else we can do here, luv." He looked from Dawn to the witch and back again.

"I know, I know." The girl answered the concern in his eyes. "Stick close to Willow, don't do anything silly."

They smiled together, sharing sadness. He touched her hand gently.

"C'mon." He gestured towards me.  I followed him out with a smile for Dawn and a glance at the rest, who spared us no more than that in return.

* * *

The walk back to the graveyard was quiet.  The past few weeks had been tense, and it looked like there would be no relief.

His mood was leaking into me; we were both on the edge of jumpy.  Tires screeched, drawing us up short.  The motorcycle swung around us and stopped.  The rider faced us, leaning one foot on the ground and killed the engine.

Him.  The man was the same, but the face wasn't. Normal, in form if not in expression. Large, almond eyes slanted over normal, honey brown, cheekbones. He regarded us coolly. I pulled away from Spike with a gentle tap.  We both circled for good position.

"We're on the same side." He'd chosen to address Spike, so I stopped and answered.

"Which side is that?"

"The side trying to keep any more girls from being killed." He glanced at us both, his body relaxed, and his position awkward for attack.

I read Spike's judgment call in his eyes.  Trust.

The stranger's concern was real, knit in with an eerie chill that radiated from his every word and gesture.

"I killed you.  Twice, even," I said.

"Already being dead helps with that."

I had to smile.  "You too?"

I rejoined Spike and we stood there, three corpses outside a cemetery, worried about the living.  A bird (The same one as before? Why did that thought occur to me?) swooped down to join us.

"Her name is Sarah.  She's a friend of mine.  She was visiting Sunnydale and disappeared.  I've tracked her this far."

"If you didn't attack that girl outside the warehouse, who did?" asked Spike.

"I was trying to find that out when you interrupted me.  And then your friend killed me."

I shrugged and laid my head on Spike's shoulder.  He looked at the lightening sky.

"We've got to get home.  You staying anywhere in particular?"

"Nope." He patted his motorcycle.  "This is all I have." His smile leavened his chill, but only a little. "I'm Eric."

We headed towards the crypt. "Spike.  And ita.  So you say you're dead, mate?" he continued conversationally.

Eric didn't have much in the way of additional information, but he was as committed to protecting his Sarah as Spike was to Dawn. When Eric told of his dead girlfriend, I felt Spike's hand tense in mine.  When Eric mentioned that Shelley still appeared to him, still spoke to him, Spike dropped my hand entirely and retreated, unreadable behind hooded eyes.  He remained remote through Eric's explanation of having returned from the grave, brought back by the Crow to exact vengeance, and whose spirit still possessed him from time to time.

Back at the crypt, I waited until Spike and Eric had shared all they knew about the girls' disappearance. I was bored.

 "So, how hard are you to kill?" I asked.

I moved to an area of the crypt cleared for my martial arts practice.  I circled it and turned to face his position.

"Very," he said, and walked over to meet me.

"Show me."

His heel shot out in a crisp powerful line towards my stomach.  I twisted just enough to avoid it and stepped in towards him, faking a blow to break his knee, and jabbed my elbow up to his jaw.

I grazed his hair as he ducked beneath my strike.  His stiffened fingers darted out towards a vulnerable nerve cluster under my arm.  I twisted again and escaped with mere tingling for my troubles.

We had each other's measure now.  He was fast, precise and very very strong.  He approved of my talents enough to relax, and we fell easily into a sparring rhythm. Attack, respond, disengage; each exchange with just enough force to demonstrate aim, speed and strength.  Enough force to kill a human, perhaps, but therein lay the fun.

One of his moves, a one-handed cartwheel kick, triggered a suspicion.  In response, after I evaded it, I laughed and dropped into a jinga, the rhythmic core of capoeira.  He nodded recognition and shifted his style to match.

Now we were playing capoeira.  We made no contact, but moved much faster.  The emphasis was on the beat of the fight, and on trickery.  He was good.

I dropped to the ground to avoid a sharp kick and saw an opening from my low vantage point.  I shot my legs out to trap his supporting foot between them and twisted.  My tesoura pitched him violently face forwards to the ground.

In a split second, he had flipped back up to his feet and hoisted me up off the ground. His fingers dug cruelly into my neck as he suspended me over a foot off the floor.  I was silently grateful that I had neither circulation nor an airway to cut off.  Still, I scrabbled ineffectually at his rigid grip. I began to twist my legs upwards towards his chest, thinking to shove him away, when my eyes met his.

These weren't the same eyes I'd been dancing with while we sparred.  His gaze had become flat, compelling mine with something both vast and empty.  Darkness streaked down the now artificial pallour of his face, like charcoal tears.

The gradual stretch of a mirthless grin across this death's mask was suddenly cut short.

"Playtime's over, bird boy." Spike was in vamp face, pulling an improvised garrote tight around Eric's neck.  A slow growl uncoiled itself from Spike's throat. "I don't care how many times I have to kill you.  Put the lady down."

I was dropped summarily.  My knees gave way a little – meeting his stare had been draining.  He spun, knocking Spike's stranglehold away.

They faced each other, feral and deadly, teeth bared and eyes glittering with challenge. Eric tilted his head down, allowing his hair to cascade across his face.  Spike tipped his own back, every fibre wary, and unhurriedly ran his tongue over his fangs.

When Eric raised his head again his body language had changed, as well as his face.  He no longer rippled with the same menace and tension, but rather seemed hesitant.

"That's the Crow," he explained, with resigned apology. "He comes when he wills."

"You'd both better watch it," warned Spike.

I hadn't realized I was bleeding until Spike touched my neck gently and came away with a bead of blood glistening on his fingertip, like a garnet on snow.  He looked from it to Eric, coolly.

"I think we need a break." He put his arm around my shoulders. "We're going to have a lie down.  You can sleep anywhere you want."

We left him and walked into the next room.

* * *

We woke about half an hour before sunset, by the feel of things.  Eric had gone, leaving a terse note.

"Looking around some more," it read. "Looks like another's been taken."

I spent the next 45 minutes watching Spike pace.  When Eric returned he didn't let him much past the entrance before challenging him.

"A house on Revello," Eric explained.

"What number?" Spike continued without waiting for an answer. "You were there?"

"1630 Revello.  I checked the whole place – empty, just broken furniture."

"Right," muttered Spike, gathering paraphernalia and shrugging on his duster.  "What else do you know?"

"I know where they're heading, but I can't find them myself.  My crow can only take us so far.  And then ita does the rest."

"Me?"

"Whatever the man says, kit.  C'mon."

"You'll need transportation," Eric added.  "It's in the woods outside town."

"We'll pick something up." Spike's smile was humourless.

* * *

The force of it knocked me to my knees.  My stomach was wrenched, and I could not stop myself from gagging uselessly.  Spike knelt quickly by my side, a hand light at the small of my back.

I filed away the soothing intent of the touch somewhere in a small and calm corner of my mind.  But I could not bear it right now.  I was hot, overwhelmingly hot, tugging at the collar of my shirt.

Spike's fingers were suddenly very cool on my forehead, and through squinted eyes I saw him frown as he rubbed my sweat between his fingertips.

"You guys don't feel it?" They both looked uncomfortable, but far better than I was.  The sensations were subsiding somewhat.  "We're near.  We're near … her."

Eric nodded at my choice of pronoun.  Spike saw this and leapt angrily to his feet.

"What do you know, and how do you know it?" he snarled.

"Shelley …" Eric trailed off.

"If you're keeping things from us that your dead girlfriend is telling you …" Spike also let his sentence hang.

"She can't be specific." Eric paused and for a moment he wasn't seeing us. "It's a her, a very angry and needy her."

Somehow I knew this to be true.

"She hates us," I said.  Spike looked down at me, but my gaze went past him.  "You especially, Eric."

"She's calling me because I'm female.  She's collecting females," I continued.  I guess Shelley was backing me up, because Eric was nodding again. "But she's rejecting me because I'm dead.  You guys really don't feel anything?"

They didn't. I, on the other hand, was still down on my knees in the cold night grass, trembling and hoping the worst of it had passed.

"She hates you the most, Eric. Hates and fears you.  Me and Spike, we're dead, and demons to boot.  She has no use for the dead – it's life she's after.  But you, you're not just dead.  You're death.  You're death and love and vengeance.  You're throwing her into a panic."

"But where?" asked Spike. "Where is she?  And where are the girls?"

I closed my eyes.  I wasn't retching anymore.  I felt almost normal.  But the push and the pull hadn't gone away.  Now I could sense their direction.  I pointed, opening my eyes.

Spike helped me to my feet.  His touch was much more welcome now, now that my composure was returning.

"There's something else I should …" Eric paused. "Something I should show you."

He dug one hand into his pocket and moving before I could react, pressed the other to my temple.  Another shock wave, this one very different, took my knees from under me again.  This time Spike caught me, and I heard him swear loudly before the sensations overwhelmed me.

There were scenes.  Loud, bright jump cuts – all immersive, submerging all of my senses.

I saw Dawn being advanced upon by a group of girls with glassy eyes.  I gasped as they reached her, but they pushed her roughly aside.  They were going for someone else – the redheaded witch.  They grabbed her and her eyes went dark and she began to crackle with power.  So, suddenly, did they.  I could hear screaming, smell fear, and then everything ended.

I suppose I must have closed my eyes, because I was opening them now.  The first thing I saw was Eric's hand holding a choker – the choker the witch had been wearing in the vision.

"Show him, " I said hoarsely, gesturing at Spike who was still holding me up.

"Hell no," he said with vehemence. "Just tell me what happened."

"They didn't want Dawn," I said, and felt him relax. "They were going for the redhead."

"Bleeding hell." He was tense again, and resolute. He looked squarely at Eric.  "You've really got to stop holding out on us, mate."

Eric seemed truly surprised. "I didn't know you knew her.  I was just showing you someone else had been taken."

I was strong enough to stand by myself now, maybe strong enough to fight, although I didn't know what use that would be.

"Let's go." I gestured in the direction of our quarry.

We walked only a few feet before I stopped.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"More woods," shrugged Spike.

To me there was a flicker.  First more woods, then a darkness and a transparency I could feel would lead us to what we sought.  And to her – the force that was both calling and rejecting me.

"There's something there," I said.  "She's through there."

Spike looked at me.  He frowned pensively, so I took the bait and asked that question that women are never supposed to ask.

"What are you thinking?"

His face cleared.  He grunted. "That I haven't seen you kill anything in a while."

I smiled, feeling sturdier now, and kissed him lightly.  I saw Eric's face as I pulled away – first wistful, and then resolved.

"Let's go," said Spike. I took their hands and led them forwards into the blankness.

The key to a good fight (a good fight being one you win) is location – yours, and knowing theirs.  We plunged in blind, and I felt the invisible barrier sliding past us like a clammy membrane, popping us out on the other side.

It was a rough clearing, about the size of a basketball court, I thought.  I quickly noted the huddle of shivering girls to my right, Dawn among them but no Willow.  To our left another group of girls separated and moved towards us with uncanny smoothness.

The first one reached me where I stood at the tip of our invading wedge.  Over her shoulder I had enough time to see the redheaded witch dangling in mid-air, darkness snaking around her ankles.

Then the girl lunged.  I met her halfway with a shoulder to her stomach and knocked her down, cracking some of her ribs in the process.  She stank of death – the ribs across her heart already broken, and empty space behind them.  One of the dead then, animated.  She rolled easily over and back to her feet.  Seemed her animator registered no pain.

Time for a new tack, then.  I bounced and spun.  The feint of the tornado kick didn't faze her, didn't affect her forward momentum.  But the follow-through did, snapping her neck.  She fell, silently, like a stone.

I turned to survey the rest of the terrain.  A strangled cry from the cowering girls distracted the three of us. One of them was jerked forward out of the group by unseen hands. She fell to her knees, clutching at her chest and struggling.  Clumsily, twitching, she scrabbled at herself.  Blood streamed down her front, and suddenly she pulled her arm away with the same inhuman grace the other animated corpses displayed.  In her fist she held her heart.  The survivors huddled closer together, shuddering and whimpering.

The pause was over.  All of the corpses moved towards us again, then stopped.  They stood between us and Willow.

Spike, Eric and I looked at each other.  There was no way we could keep fighting without killing more of the girls.

"Eric!" I hissed.  "There must be a reason she's afraid of you."

But he was no longer Eric.  The Crow strode to where Willow hung, knocking aside her dead guard.  The darkness had reached her knees.  He smiled.

The smile spread, but not as far as his eyes.  Perhaps, like us, it was chilled by their emptiness.  He leant forward, and in a sudden but graceful gesture that would have made me jump had I been able to move at all, he plunged both hands into the darkness that was creeping up the witch's body.

There was screaming.  I remember that much quite clearly.  Even now I still wonder where it came from.  Not from the Crow, that was certain.  His mouth was open in a hollow rictus, but that was the sound's destination, not its source.

Spike also stood silent, bathed in the directionless, lifeless light that filled the clearing.  He loomed over Dawn's motionless form, towering with an implacable intensity.

Perhaps **I** screamed.  I don't know.  Something screamed.  It felt like all of us, every conscious female there, living or no, screamed the same single scream.  A scream of the pain of being touched by the dead-alive Crow, of feeling his cold cruel fingers pry us away from ourselves, knowing he was tearing me/her/us from what I/she/we deserved, this chance to **be** again, in a world richer than any we'd ever known, than any other that had called us.

Abruptly it was over.  The keening ended, and whatever had briefly but firmly bound us together snapped away.  The corpses fell, their puppeteer burnt away by this man who straddled the two worlds she had been trying to bridge.  Gone, I suspected, forever.  The scream had been death knell, death rattle, and mourning all in one.          

Willow stirred limply in Eric's arms with a twitching cough, but she continued to lie against him with her eyes closed.  I looked to my right, where Spike now knelt beside Dawn.  She shook with tears she tried in vain to swallow.  He stroked her hair tenderly, and turned her shivering head close to rest against his chest. 

Eric sat still where he'd fallen with Willow.  He was frozen with this strange woman in his arms, staring at the huddle of surviving girls, relief on his face.  One of them must be the friend he'd followed here … Sarah.  I moved to him to free his attention.  He placed the redhead gently into my arms and thanked me with a nod, moving quickly to his friend's side.

She hugged him tightly, and he stroked her brown hair as she shook.  She pushed back, just far enough to look him in the eyes.

"Your mother was worried," he said.

"Yeah?" Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

"Yeah."

She buried her face into his chest, muffling her next words. "I'm okay.  Can we go home?"

He pushed her back this time, and regarded her carefully, moving her one blonde lock of hair from her face.

"Sure." He looked at Spike, who nodded. "I've got what I came for."

She smiled weakly. He scooped her up in his arms, and loped off into the forest.

I stared down at the witch as I crouched.  Her face was tracked with tears, sweat, and blood-flecked spittle.  She'd bitten through her lip more than once, and from the sharp smell she'd also wet herself in her vain struggle.

I flinched as she pulled closer to me, grabbing tiny fistfuls of my shirt.  She **was** tiny, a shivering bundle of bodily fluids and functions.  I found her both oppressive and unsettling.  I looked around again, at the fallen corpses, and at all the other girls, slowly pulling themselves out of their stupor.

I jumped back at her sudden wail, from her small and feeble hands beating at me.  More than happy to comply, I jerked, letting her fall to the ground.  Which wasn't enough, apparently, because she continued to wail, her already raw voice cracking and twisting.

"Stop it!" bellowed Spike, who'd reached my side as I stared at her in disbelief.  She paused, but only to gasp for more breath.  He crouched close by her side.  "Stick a sock in it, Red." He lowered his voice. "You're scaring the other girls."

She kept ignoring him.  I backed closer to Dawn.  Spike grimaced and pulled back his hand.

The slap was a sharp crack that startled us all, even Spike, I think.  But it did stop her.  She gave one last hiccupped shriek and a wide-eyed and hurt stare.

"It's over, Red." He looked at her squarely.  "Done, whatever it was."

She shifted away from him, making him narrow his eyes.

"What was it?" he probed.

I watch as she bit her lip timidly, and winced as she discovered she'd done that before, and less gently.  You could just about taste the guilt in the air, and it whetted Spike's curiosity.

"Why you?" he continued.  "She went through all those girls to get right to you, didn't she?"

"Look, maybe this isn't the best …"

"It's as good a time as any," Spike said quietly, cutting Dawn off.

"She's a wreck," she said.

"Course she's a wreck," answered Spike. "But she's a guilty wreck, and I want to know why."

Willow was crying again, shaking with hushed sniffles.  Spike didn't ease up, watching her with an intense tilt of his head.

"You called her, didn't you?"

"Yes." Her voice was little more than a whimper, a moan.  "She … I … I didn't know she'd come.  I just needed the power.  To help Buffy fight Glory – to protect the Key."

Dawn winced, wrinkling her face with guilt and inching nearer me as she looked at the death around her.

"Don't start, luv." Spike wound reproach into his voice, as he understood.  "It wasn't about the Niblet at all, was it? It was revenge, pure and simple.  Revenge for what Glory did to Tara." He stood up and looked down at her. "You were playing with dark magic. You had to know it would come at a price."

"I didn't know … I was just using a spell!" She curled herself into a ball, and was talking to her knees. "I didn't know she'd come for me … we all thought it was about the Key.  I thought I could use my new power to keep Dawn safe."

I thought back to the visions of the witch's capture that Eric had shared with me.

"You were feeding her though, weren't you?  The corpses became stronger when you used your magic.  Her magic."

She flashed me a resentful stare, and buried her face back into her skirt.  Dawn went to her, patting her shoulder awkwardly as the older girl continued to cry.

Spike looked around.  There were 3 girls still with us, not counting the witch.  They seemed a bit shaky on their feet, but able to walk.  They leaned against each other for support, dazed and tearful.

"Let's go," he barked.

Dawn looked up at him. "She can't walk! She's too weak."

Raising an eyebrow, Spike turned to me.  I grumbled quietly and bent down to help Willow up.  She was very weak, too weak to walk even with my assist.

"Does it hurt?"

She looked at me with confusion.

"Are you injured?" I asked. "Ribs, or anything?"

She shook her head.

"Good.  Don't move." I leaned down and slung her over my shoulder. "Comfortable?"

She met my question with silence.  Well, that was her call.

"Okay.  I'm ready."

Dawn helped Spike herd the other girls as we walked through the woods.

"No!" Willow was making noise again.

I flipped her to her feet, but didn't let her fall.

"What the fuck is it now?" I muttered to myself, knowing only Spike could hear. 

"No!" she moaned and collapsed into my arms.

"What is it?" asked Dawn, with more concern than I thought strictly necessary.

"What did you do to me?" Willow asked, turning, looking around in vain for Eric, but without moving further away from me like I'd hoped.  Her hair was in my face, and I knew I'd be smelling like her and her secretions for days. "Where is he?  What did he do?"

"He brought you back," Spike said slowly.  "He saved your life and the lives of all the girls – he cut you free."

"No!" she said.  Again. "He cut me away from it … from all of it."

She pressed back into me, her voice a clumsy ascending scale.

"It's gone.  It's ALL gone!" Her knees buckled and I caught her before she hit the ground.

"The magic?" asked Dawn.

"Gone." She turned back and buried her face in my shirt.  I could feel the snot soaking through.  She was muttering and sobbing now, almost incoherent.

I looked at Spike, shrugging a question.  He shrugged an answer in return, and I slung the weeping girl back over my shoulder.


End file.
